Is AMC's Rubicon Too Smart for Its Own Good?

Something tells me I’m not smart enough to watch Rubicon. The first time I heard of the show was when a friend asked, “Hey, Mike, what do you think about Rubicon?” Without pausing to think, I replied, “I thought she was fine on Benson, why?”

Oops. I was thinking of Didi Conn, the actress who played Frenchie in Grease. Rubicon, the title of AMC’s new Sunday-night espionage drama, is a reference to the river that Julius Caesar crossed in 49 B.C. in an act of defiance that sparked a bloody civil war and ultimately led to the Roman Empire. To “cross the Rubicon” means to pass the point of no return. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I had to look some of that up.

Having watched the first four episodes, I can tell you that Rubicon makes no apologies about being high brow. Watching it gave me the same awkward feeling I experience whenever people start discussing their academic credentials. After sitting through a litany of Ivy League reminiscences, I generally have no choice but to point out that my freshman year at Missouri was also Mad Men star John Hamm’s senior year. (As a diversionary tactic, this actually works fairly well.)

Why do I mention all this? Because I don’t want you to think that I’m praising Rubicon just because it’s a “smart” show about a grand conspiracy. There’s more to it than that. Granted, its plot is brooding and dense, but without the camp quality of Lost. The pace is slow. The tone is dark—literally! A few hours in, I started to wonder if every character forgot to pay their electric bill that month. Even so, I can’t deny its appeal: I want to know where this show is going.

Here is my best attempt at explaining what is going on: The show starts off with a four-leaf clover. A signal for a man, who seems to have a nice enough family life, to shoot himself in the head. Then, in an unrelated, for now, narrative thread, we meet our hero, Will Travers (James Badge Dale). Will is a code-breaker at some sort of private company that specializes in making sure government entities like the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. communicate properly with one another. Will stumbles upon a code in a crossword puzzle that he immediately presents to his team lead. The team lead reports these findings to his superior and, for his efforts, is murdered in a train accident that is, by far, the coolest scene of the show so far. With understandable reluctance, Will accepts a promotion to become the new team lead; on the side, meanwhile, he begins investigating the death of his boss and its connection to the crossword puzzles. Oh, and a lot of people are secretly following Will around these days on the pretty much deserted streets of New York City. I can only assume that this show takes place over Labor Day weekend.

In other words, Rubicon is a conspiracy show about crossword puzzles that is played 100-percent seriously. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m too dumb or too smart for this show.

Rubicon has a nice time slot, nestled right next to AMC’s much-loved Mad Men. But if you’re someone who complains about the pace of Mad Men, Rubicon’s not going to be your cup of tea—at least not at first. Each Mad Men season starts off slowly and builds up to a crescendo, but it’s impossible to know at this point if Rubicon will follow the same game plan. I hope it will. Looking back over the first four episodes, I realize now that the plot progressed nicely and quite a few interesting things happened. But when you’re in the thick of an individual episode, it can get awfully sluggish.

Look, Rubicon is a show you can’t give up on early. It takes nearly four full episodes to start feeling comfortable with the characters, probably because they spend so much time sitting around in the dark. For Christ’s sake, will someone please turn on a light?

I’m interested. But that doesn’t mean I understand what’s going on with the plot. If anyone asks for my theories about the show, I can have only one reply: “Um, hey, did you know that my freshman year at Missouri was also Mad Men star John Hamm’s senior year?”